GG Popescu

Andrei Popescu laid track for Romania's state network for thirty years and was national champion through most of the nineties, occasionally in the same week: he still tells the story of taking a title on the Sunday and signing off a viaduct on the Monday. Retired from both, he mentors the youth section at Bucharest's main club and gives away everything he knows.

He talks himself into trouble. Not with opponents, who like him, but with the clock: he will explain the principle behind a move at some length and then find he has four minutes left for eleven points. He knows this about himself. He has decided that a game played in silence is not worth winning, and he is prepared to pay for that position roughly twice a season.